FCC OKs Nationwide Radio Plan

Today the FCC approved much-anticipated rules for its upcoming spectrum auction intended to create a nationwide public safety radio network based on proposals by Cyren Call and Frontline Wireless LLC. The commission also approved other rules that will require bidders on cetain spectrum to provide so-called “open access” to the frequencies, but did not approve a plan promoted by Google that would have required wholesale access. The public safety decision would create a public-private partnership between the licensees of two blocks of spectrum. The commercial licensee–which Frontline and Cyren Call hope to be–will build out a nationwide, interoperable broadband network for the use of public safety. Under the partnership, the FCC explained, the public safety licensee will have priority access to the commercial spectrum in times of emergency, and the commercial licensee will have preemptible, secondary access to the public safety broadband spectrum. Download (pdf) the full Report & Order here. [more]

The FCC’s open access rules for the auction overshadowed the public safety sections, since the concept pitted Internet companies that included Google again the country’s cellular carriers. The FCC applied open access for just one-third of the spectrum being auctioned. It will mean that the company licensing the spectrum will have to allow any device and application to use the spectrum, with only a few technical limitations. But the FCC’s rules didn’t go as far as Google had wanted, requiring the auction winner to wholesale access to other companies.

The FCC’s public safety decision takes a 12 MHz broadband allocation from the upper D block of public safety spectrum, and marries it with an adjacent 10 MHz commercial allocation. The existing guard band between public safety and commercial would be moved up, to between the public safety broadband and narrowband allocations. A second guard band will also be moved to create contiguous spectrum for the public-private plan.

The commercial licensee and the public safety licensee are required to form a Public Safety/Private Partnership to develop the shared, nationwide interoperable network, operating under the FCC’s rules and an agreement to be worked out by the public safety and private license holders.

Under the partnership, the public safety users will have priority access to the commercial spectrum in times of emergency, but the commercial licensee will have “preemptible, secondary access” to the public safety spectrum. According to the FCC’s press release, “Many national and local public safety organizations have expressed support for a public safety/private partnership approach. Providing for shared infrastructure will help achieve significant cost efficiencies while maximizing public safety’s access to interoperable broadband spectrum.”